Opinion | Where do the Raptors fit in as a new NBA season begins? It’s complicated

I have seen the future, and it is Victor Wembanyama. French, 18 years old, seven-foot-three (in bare feet), and somehow fluid and skilled enough to cross you over, rise into the clouds for a three, or swoop past to what looks, suddenly, like a child’s hoop. The NBA is excellent at locating and developing unique variations of our species, but seeing Wembanyama is like being the fish who watched as the first of your colleagues strolled onto the shore.

He will be the No. 1 pick, and the NBA will see some tanking this season, boy. Some tires will be slashed, some engines filled with sand, some steering wheels will be tossed out the window. Call it Wembanyamania.

The bad and good news is the Toronto Raptors couldn’t tank even if they dragged the operation back to Tampa and strapped Fred VanVleet — their most essential beating heart — to a lounge chair for a year. The franchise is too well constructed, the talent too promising, the machine Masai Ujiri built too good.

And yet, not yet good enough. The Raptors are an NBA afterthought in most prediction circles because they seem like the classic example of good, not great.

Never mind that Pascal Siakam is still on a growth curve at age 27, trying to add DeMar DeRozan-like footwork to his own long, agile frame. (Though between his age and his ambitions, it’s tricky.) Never mind that VanVleet is a walking culture cheat code. Never mind that Scottie Barnes is the future star who will be given opportunity after opportunity to do more. He was the rookie of the year while more or less test-driving his way through the league, so what happens when he feels confident enough to really go?

And never mind that the Raptors will come out of the gate with their long-limbed defence in high gear, while maxing out their pieces with a program that demands high standards and accountability. Other teams, in the league of stars, are sexier. Milwaukee and Giannis Antetokounmpo are a year removed from a title, Boston and Jayson Tatum reached their first finals, Philadelphia has Joel Embiid and a slimmed-down James Harden, and the Brooklyn Nets have Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and whatever Ben Simmons is now. The Nets feel like one of those old casinos that are scheduled for implosion, but they haven’t accepted it yet.

Does Toronto fit with the rest? Miami stuck to being Raptors South Beach, developing pieces around second-tier stars. Chicago stood pat with a team that wasn’t quite enough last year.

Then there are the teams that made their moves. Atlanta burned first-round pick value to get combo guard Dejounte Murray from San Antonio, and Cleveland burned future first-rounders and some young player capital to grab Donovan Mitchell from the Utah Jazz, after Minnesota had already reset the market with five first-round picks for defensive star Rudy Gobert.

Murray is a nice piece, but he wouldn’t have elevated Toronto’s problematic half-court offence, or added the requisite shooting and shotmaking. Mitchell, meanwhile, is an upper-level scorer and fearless playoff performer, sure. But could Mitchell have defended a pick-and-roll to the level that Nick Nurse demands? Could he learn to survive in Nurse’s defensive system? Could he work with others?

No, the Raptors didn’t look very hard at Donovan Mitchell, because if you’re going to make the big move, you have to be sure what you’re buying can live up to your exacting, franchise-defining standards. Toronto looked for bigger fish, nosing their way into the Kevin Durant sweepstakes that went nowhere, and are now back to growing from within. The Raptors could have chased Gobert, one supposed, and tried to win by surrounding Gobert with Toronto’s army of big and active wings and surrendering 80 points a night. It’s probably for the best they didn’t try.

So instead Toronto still has its pile of trade chips and patience. The Raptors could be better and finish with fewer wins by exercising the power of nonconformity, of continuity, of maxing out talent with a ceaseless effort, and that high standard of excellence. As Nurse told reporters this week, “We understand we’ve got to really compete. Pretty much every night we go out there, we’ve got to compete to play.”

Some teams are already built to tank, and some will try to catch up at the first whisper of real injuries, and some might even unload assets — that steering wheel, out the window — to help them strive for a 14 per cent chance at an 18-year-old Frenchman who makes Gobert look small and could wind up playing the game in different places than anybody in history.

The Raptors, though, live in the space between tanking and the NBA’s next horizon, when a new TV deal in 2025 could explode the salary cap again, and reorder everything. The salary cap rise following the 2016 TV deal bumped the cap by 32 per cent, and sent Durant to Golden State; this one might be bigger.

So maybe a San Antonio jettisons a Jakob Poeltl and Toronto is interested, or something like that. But unless the Durant talks heat back up if Brooklyn burns, what we will most likely see is a Raptors that is like last year’s version but more: but more advanced, more polished, still flawed, but with a better Barnes. Progression.

And again, it’s working while you wait. The gap between those teams which will try to win and try to lose might be wider than ever this season, with Wembanyama on the near horizon. And the Toronto Raptors might not be a title contender quite yet, and still need to develop, or change course, to get there.

But it’s simple, really, and Masai Ujiri says it all the time. The Raptors are trying to win.

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